Traveling 50 States with Kids

Our last and final state, North Dakota! This time, our rising 8th grader wrote a report about our trip and some concluding thoughts: In 1883, Theodore Roosevelt stepped foot in what was in the future known as Theodore Roosevelt Park. He felt himself drawn again and again to the park —and for good reason that is. Flying to North Dakota as our last state in this too long journey did not disappoint. From the food to huge blocks of sedimentary rocks and bison, I know everyone was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of North Dakota. This stay in North Dakota with the national park along with other attractions really did grab our attention. Chelita Restaurant As soon as we landed and got the rental car, my family knew we had one goal and one goal only in North Dakota—visit the national park we all know TR raved on and on about. However, our hunger and thirst got to the better of us. We ended up stopping at a local El Salvadorian restaurant off the side of the road. The family business's f...

The boys took a trip to Boston to visit family and drove to Maine and New Hampshire. Since I (mom) wasn't there, our rising 6th grader wrote about their time at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. Here's his unedited writing: 😊  I am going to tell you about New Hampshire. We did a long drive from Maine to New Hampshire. It was crowded, but we found a spot to park and went to the beach. We were playing around until we saw a massive fish!!!! It was so cool and we tried to catch it multiple times, but we always failed. We decided to go catch the crabs near the rocks. It was a really long journey there, and the formation of the beach was different then normal beaches. We finally arrived at the rocks and saw a lot of crabs. We caught several crabs and then had to go home.  With cousins 😍 With Grandma 😍

The boys took a trip to Boston to visit family and drove to Maine and New Hampshire. Since I (mom) wasn't there, our rising 6th grader wrote about their time in Maine. Here's his unedited writing: 😊  I am going to tell you all about my trip to Maine. From Boston we drove to Maine, and while we were driving we went to the Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge with our cousins. The second we got there, our cousins screamed “ deer”! My brother and I turned our heads and saw a deer! It ran away after that. We started walking around for an hour until we saw our car.  We decided to go to a place called Heaven Swamp Park. We got there, but our cousins got lost, so we went by ourselves. We walked out of the car and after 5 minutes we left, because the smell there was so bad!!!!! There was dead seaweed and dead birds everywhere!!  We immediately left to go to the beach. However, on the way we found a famous store called The Landing Store, known for their lobster rolls. We ate the lobster...